Does Your Station Have a Streaming Channel?
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The networks know that the future is in streaming and ABC, CBS, and NBC are pouring millions of dollars into streaming.
NBC News says its service is averaging 34 million streaming hours a month in 2022, up 55% over last year.
But what about local stations?
I know many local stations stream their newscasts, but they should be doing more.
If local stations want to survive, they need to look to the future and that future is streaming.
While streaming newscasts are well and good, you need to start offering the viewers more. I know a few stations that are offering up extended newscasts that run on air and then move over to streaming only.
I have tried watching a few of these and all I see on the streaming side is just a rehash of what was already reported on air.
Stations need to offer up streaming only shows that are worth watching.
Let’s use the Orlando market as an example.
There are scores of people on YouTube that offer up vlogs about Disney World. They are in the theme park everyday and telling their viewers what is new, trying different foods and showing what events are happening.
These Disney vloggers are getting millions of viewers and there are others that focus only on Universal Studios Orlando.
What if an Orlando station had their own theme park vlogger for the station’s streaming channel? They could appear on air from time to time, but their main job would be creating content for the streaming channel.
Better yet, what if an Orlando station went out and hired a top Disney vlogger and had them create the content for streaming. That way, the new hire comes with a prebuilt audience.
This is just an example for one market.
What if one of your anchors loved to restore old cars? That anchor could showcase cars and others that do the same thing on the stations streaming channel. Same thing if you had an anchor that loved to cook.
The future of TV stations is going to be streaming and local programing.
It might be time for TV stations to start thinking about that.
